


Darkness of the Mind in Night-Vision

by jecook



Category: South Park
Genre: Altered Mental States, Alternate Universe - Horror, Alternate Universe - Mental Institution, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Body Horror, Horror, M/M, Mental Instability, Mental Institutions, Mount Massive Asylum, Mystery, Outlast AU, Psychological Horror, Supernatural Elements, Survival, Survival Horror, asylum AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2019-06-16 21:26:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15446208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jecook/pseuds/jecook
Summary: Freelance journalist Eric Cartman goes to explore the Bechdel-Holtz Asylum late at night, following a handful of mysterious leads. And inside the asylum, ex-employee Kyle Broflovski does his absolute best to not die as the asylum spirals into chaos. Kyman. Outlast inspired/AU.





	1. Chapter 1

Cartman had sort of fallen into the whole journalism gig, and given that he was a freelancer meant that he fell into his cheap car and cheap apartment as well. Most of his extra cash went straight to new supplies: better camera, more batteries, detachable boom mic. The only thing that kept him from starving or sleeping in his car was his willingness to chase down risky - well, absurdly dangerous - stories.

Which was how he ended up driving along the Rocky Mountain slopes to Bechdel-Holtz Center: a well-established asylum for the certifiably fucked up. Oh, and it was in the dead of night. 11:08 PM, to be exact.

Cartman couldn't say he felt particularly happy about the lead. He was following a scattered trail of strange press statements from the facility's head scientists, some haunting but unreliable posts on an online complaint forum, and one unusual report from a local hunter. He wouldn't have ever even considered coming if it weren't for the email that had landed in his inbox four days ago.

The whole situation was either going to be dull and pointless and unsuccessful or horrifying and revealing and profitable. He hadn't yet figured out which alternative he preferred.

He parked at the front of the gate, stood on top of his car, and hoisted himself over the metal gate. His landing sucked, objectively. It wasn't like he had ever researching parkour, but now he almost considered it. "How to land a high jump" was pretty much parkour 101. As he slugged his way to the front door, Cartman tried to ignore the dull ache in his legs from his bad landing and the tight warning in his chest as he approached. Instead, he flipped open his handheld camera to check the battery. Nearly 100%. Good. His large camera, safe in its case, thumped against his back as he hopped up the stairs - not eager, just trying to finish and get home and either write up the story or pout with a bag of cheesy poofs and some COD.

Unsurprisingly, the front door was locked. Crazy people did live here, and other crazies might try to get in.

So Cartman huffed, knit his brows, and started circling the perimeter. All he needed was an open window, and hell if he didn't take the time to start filming.

"Seeing so many broken windows is suspicious enough, people of America, but," Cartman zoomed his camera to a broken window on the third story, "There's blood on that window pane - on the glass, too. Working for so long in this field, I have a trained eye for spotting just such things." It wasn't much, but Cartman was sure of what he saw. Below and to the right of that window, one window had been left open. The only entrance that wasn't a broken glass hazard, unlike most other windows around the institute.

"Okay you guys, I'm going to sign out for a bit while I try to get in through that window. I'll be back on once I'm in." And Cartman cut the video. The small handheld had a durable strap that hung loosely around his neck. Cartman threw it under his arm and around his back while he searched for a way to climb up the window.

The most straightforward approach would be to slowly climb the brick outside wall up to the second story window. There might be some small pinch holds that Cartman could grip. Except that it would hurt. And be tiring.

He started to walk around. He needed something that could get him to that second-story window. As he paced the grounds, Cartman took note of the scaffolding - issue being that the would-be helpful structure was around the corner of the building, and the windows there were likely locked tight or riddled with broken glass. There was one tree near the window Cartman wanted, but the branches were far too thin and would likely break under his (admittedly) heavier weight.

Eric Cartman was by no means fit. Somehow his line of work never led to him losing weight - he ate cheap and unhealthy food just so that he could survive, and spent more time sitting in libraries or on his couch researching potential leads than actually running after a story. He was, as some other freelancers like to point out, fat. It made his job harder, yet Cartman never did anything to change the fact. He liked how he looked. And he didn't much care to look like some skinny white boy twink, either.

There were some scattered broken boards lying about, and even a metal chair on the side of the building. Tall metal fencing connected the main building to the brick walls that lined the grounds. It was that diamond-shaped wire fencing. Cartman knew how to climb that - every kid climbed metal fences. But this fence had barbed wire looped over the top.

Cartman stood a minute to weigh his two options: risk the thin-branched tree and climb to his perfect second-story window, or attempt to safely climb over the barbed wire. Except that even getting past the fence might not help him - for all he knew, all those doors were locked, just like the front door. Then he'd be stuck on the other side of the barbed wire, and have to risk getting cut up _again_ just to get back to his car.

Cartman started for the tree.

The first few branches were easy. Get a good grip, then heft himself up. He ascended slowly, taking each step with care. Find a good hold, test his weight by pulling slowly, then commit. First put his foot on a slightly higher branch, then shift his weight to that foot, then reach one branch higher. He was soon just below the window, but the branches were thinner here. Too thin. They bent, and the tree trunk leaned ever so slightly. It already bobbed in the wind, and Cartman's weight wasn't helping. So he committed to the window. Pushed off and jumped. The branches beneath his feet snapped as he launched. Cartman flailed for a grip on the sill. He surprised himself as he caught it and found himself laughing in his own shock. He slung his other arm up to grip the window sill and, with some determination and a heave, he pulled himself inside.

Cartman sat on the carpet and panted for a moment before he collected himself, righting first his cameras and second his clothes. He gripped his handheld and flipped open the viewscreen. He had to adjust for the lighting a bit (it was still dark inside, just now indoors-dark rather than moonlight-dark, as it was outside), and pressed record.

"I'm in. Sorry that it's so dark. Let me switch to night-vision." Cartman fiddled with his camera for a moment.

"That's better. Well, not better, but at least we can see what's going on in here. No obvious signs of disturbance, but it is strangely quiet." Cartman searched the walls for a light switch but found nothing. A lamp stood in one corner, but when Cartman tried the string, nothing happened. "So... looks like the lights are out," he said to his camera. "I'm going to continue searching, but I might not talk to you guys much more."

The door squeaked like a mouse as Cartman pulled it open. He winced at the noise and walked through the doorway into a hall. The lights were out here, as well, and Cartman wasn't going to waste time searching for a light switch. So he proceeded to walk down the hall. The floorboards creaked as badly as the door, and Cartman hated that the creaks and groans of the wood were the only noises in the dark. The silence put him on edge, though he supposed it was better than hearing even creepier noises - noises that he didn't cause. Cartman knocked gently on a wood door frame at the thought. He really didn't want to start hearing other sounds right now.

A light was on in the hall just a few more doors down. The light came from a door left slightly open, and the light from within cast a sliver of yellow onto the green and pink flowery wallpaper. Cartman took his time pushing open the door and entering the room, afraid that someone might be waiting within. The door opened all the way and hit against the wall behind, slowly swinging back toward Cartman. No one came to check the door, no one made a noise, so Cartman took that as his go-ahead to enter.

There was indeed a lamp on; it stood in the corner of the room. A couple of couches sat around a couple of coffee tables and a flatscreen TV. The TV was on, but it was just solid blue, bathing the room in its light. The lamp lit up the room in a soft, warm yellow, and together the two lights cast the whole place a sickly green-yellow-blue combination. Cartman didn't really think about the TV or the lamp or the light, though. His eyes and his camera were completely trained on the only person in the room, and man, half dressed and sitting on the couch directly in front of the screen. He wore a light-blue t-shirt and sat hunched over, staring at the blue screen. He did not move. He hardly even blinked.

Behind the couches was a puddle of blood and the floor was smeared all over with trails of blood. Bare footprints were left all over the floor, also red from blood. Cartman couldn't convince himself it was simply red paint or something stupid. It had to be blood - what else made any logical sense? And on the wall opposite the TV, written in blood, read a message:

_Walls_

_Halls_

_Say_

_Away_

In order, repeating, over and over, covering the entire wall.

Cartman walked away, backed out into the hall, and kept walking, much faster than he had before, toward the end of the hall.

* * *

 

The hallway led into a larger area - a huge room with an extra high ceiling. The second-floor landing ringed the perimeter of the room, overlooking the reception desk in the center of the room. Across the large room, Cartman saw the entrance to the building. Or better yet - the exit. He had footage now of a room covered in blood, an unmoving man, plenty of broken windows, and now... this shit.

The second-floor landing was covered in strewn about chairs, boxes, and broken shelving. The first floor looked much worse. Blood covered the front of the reception desk. A security guard slumped in his seat, his shirt stained with blood. His hat was pulled over his face but seemed a bit too close to his back. It even covered his neck. Cartman got a sick feeling in his stomach as he considered a twisted possibility: that hat was only covering up a severed neck.

The floor had smears of blood across the carpet, and plenty of stains from footprints tracking the blood around as well. But hey, at least the lights were on. Cartman fumbled with his camera to turn the night vision off once he realized he didn't need it anymore.

He took a shuddering breath and spoke to his audience, voice echoing slightly in the silence of the grand room. "Well, shit," he started. "I can see the exit, so I'm going to go ahead and try to get the fuck out of here. I just need to find the stairs to get down there." Cartman began exploring the walkway, glancing at signs on doors to see if any were helpfully labeled "Stairs."

None were. There were offices and storage rooms, sure, but no stairs. Cartman reached the other side of the room and groaned. He really did not want to go poking into the next wing of the building - God only knew what crazy shit was over there. Cartman leaned a bit on the railing and stared longingly at the ground below him. For a brief moment, he entertained the notion of just jumping down. It was only a one-story jump, so technically someone only ran a small chance of severe injury. Except Cartman had no idea how to stick a landing - he couldn't even jump from the gate without hurting his knees, never mind a second-story interior balcony. He'd break his leg or ankle or some shit. Fuck up his wrist. Cartman sighed and leaned back from the railing and turned back to his own floor.

He had looked back at the landing just in time, too, because a man stood just thirty or so feet away. Cartman zoomed his camera in on the man. He wore loose beige pants and a v-neck shirt, both dirty with mysterious brown grime (dirt?) and deep red, clearly dried, blood. Cartman swallowed a lump in his throat, which only seemed to make the lump larger.

"I want to see if fat men fly."

Cartman blinked. "Excuse me?"

The man shuddered and opened his mouth again, slowly, then shrieked, "I want to see if fat men fly!" And he ran forward, right at Cartman.

Cartman yelled in fear and turned to the door closest to him, jostling the handle. Locked. Shit. Shit, shit, shi-

The man was strong. For all of his weight, Cartman was wrestled away from the door by the man. He yelled and clawed at the attacker, but to no avail. The man didn't care that Cartman clawed open his arms, he didn't care if Cartman hit him. He hefted and pushed Cartman, who kicked and kicked and kicked, right up until he tipped over the rail. Nothing below him but air, Cartman fell toward the first-floor carpet below.

He could hear the crazed man whooping with delight, and yelling with joy, "He flies! He flies! He-"

Cartman hit the ground.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kyle, employee and whistleblower, four days earlier.

Four days before Cartman flung himself into Bechdel-Holtz, Kyle Broflovski stood up from his work computer, walked away from everything the company was asking of him, and stared down from a window. It wasn’t his window - Kyle didn’t have a window. (He did have a succulent, though. He liked to call it “Gerald,” named for his deranged father. Kyle didn’t like his father, but he liked his plant. It put a smile on his face, despite the drudgery of his job and the mounting evidence of corruption in the asylum.)

The window.

Lately, Kyle became distracted so easily. His thoughts wandered away from work and from family and instead off into the woods and down trails that had no visible end. His work slowed. Not that it mattered - Kyle had typed up an email and sent it to every journalist’s inbox he could find. He would expose this hellhole. It would burn just as it deserved to.

Right, the window. He opened it. Kyle needed the air. With the email finally sent, it was high-time Kyle took a moment to breathe. He propped his elbows up on the windowsill. It was a nice place to get some air; Kyle’s cubicle was in a suffocating room with no windows and by far too many silent workers, but this quiet game room, while intended for patients, was empty today. It usually was. So Kyle took his lunch break in this room, as he did on many days. He really… he needed the quiet.

He wouldn’t be getting that today, though. The door to the lounge swung open, followed by a couple of suits and a handful of lab coats entering. Kyle stood bolt upright.

“Mr. Broflovski?” one of the men asked.

Kyle met his eyes: hard, cold, blue - this man’s soul was as dark as his black suit. Kyle responded, “That’s me.”

Kyle had wondered if they would come. If they knew what he was doing all along. If they were watching. Now, it looked as though Kyle’s suspicion was being confirmed.

“You’ve been reported to be unwell lately. The company would like you to be formally evaluated - for safety concerns.” The man smiled as he spoke, the kind of smile that’s supposed to be warm but only belies the coldness of a person's heart.

“Oh,” Kyle said, “I see. Would you like me to set up a time for this evaluation? Tomorrow, perhaps?”

The group smiled. “No,” the man said. “Right now would be best.”

Kyle knew he had no choice. He went with the doctors.

* * *

He was weighed, his height measured, was asked questions. His medical history. Childhood development. It took nearly two hours, if Kyle estimated correctly. The room Kyle sat in was simple. White walls, a sink, a counter, a stool (with wheels), one armchair with a cushion that slowly released air as Kyle sat on it, and one of those doctor’s office kind of almost-beds that people insisted on calling an examination "table." A simple examination room. No posters. The small room didn’t even have a window.

The nurse sat on the stool, Kyle in the armchair. There was no noise as the air slowly let out of the cushion. Kyle did scowl, slightly, though he had more reasons than sitting in a cheap armchair for him to scowl over.

Kyle wondered why the nurse had to ask all these questions. He was certain that the asylum would have collected information on him prior to hiring. But perhaps, what if they hadn’t?

Or maybe they just wanted to watch Kyle’s reactions, his personal answers, not just the facts given in his file.

The nurse hunched slightly, a trait which became more obvious when he sat. The man took notes by hand, leaning over a clipboard while tapping his foot against one of the wheels of his stool. _Tap tap tap. Tap tap. Tap tap._ Then, he would ask another question. _“Did you get along with authority?”_ he would ask.

 _“For the most part, yes.”_ Kyle would answer.

_“Did you get sick often as a child?”_

_“More than other kids, but not too often.”_

The nurse would nod, his dark curls bobbing up and down over his ears. He would jot down some notes _(tap tap tap)_ , then ask more questions.

 _“Do you still get sick more often than your peers?”_ Kyle had met the nurse’s eyes then. They were soft and dark; steady and kind. This was a man who thought he was doing his job honestly. This was a man living unaware of the inhumane testing, the experiments, the abuse, the torture, the lies and deceit and blood running through the halls of this asylum, the very one this man worked for. It was for the best. If he knew, then maybe he would be sitting in an uncomfortable armchair, fear in his kind, dark eyes, being questioned on his history. Would he go quietly? Would he fight? Would he scream and kick and run? Kyle sat. Motionless.

 _“I suppose,”_ Kyle answered after a moment. There was no need to get into his own head, to see some emotion or kindness in a stranger’s eyes. Kyle didn’t know this nurse. He didn’t know what all this man knew, what he lived with. Kyle was only pretending. Projecting. He was imagining what he wanted to see in a stranger right now - kindness, innocence.

Eventually, the nurse left, and Kyle sat alone in the room.

The lightbulb buzzed - a small, tinny noise that sounded almost like the ringing Kyle got in his ears so often. It sounded so damn annoying.

The room. Kyle scanned his eyes across it for the hundredth time since being led in by the group of doctors and executives, but it was his first time taking in the room without anyone watching him. Perhaps there was camera surveillance. Kyle couldn’t see anything on the ceiling aside from a sprinkler, a fire alarm, and a smoke detector. It didn’t mean the room was camera-free, but Kyle was willing to assume he wasn’t being watched.

Under the sink and counter were cabinets and drawers, and more cabinets were on the wall above the counter. Kyle stood, in order to search the drawers, when the door opened.

The nurse had returned, a weak smile across his copper-toned face and some folded clothes in his arms. “Sorry, I almost forgot. Please change into these. A doctor will be in to see you soon.” The nurse deposited the clothes into Kyle’s arms, which Kyle held out stiffly. And then the man shuffled out again. The door clicked, and then the buzzing was all that remained.

After a full second of rigid silence, Kyle turned his gaze down to the clothes. They were neatly folded. He could imagine them in some closet, full of baggy gowns and cotton pants and sleeveless shirts, each oversized to compensate for body diversity. Kyle toed off his slip-on dress shoes and pulled off his black socks. He placed both on the armchair, where they sat without causing the cushion to lose air. Then his belt, draping it over the back of the chair; his pants, folding them, setting them on the chair, pulling on the white cotton pants. The waistband was stretchy and itched around his hips, too tight from not being stretched enough, and the pant legs were creased down the side from being folded for so long. Next his shirt, unbuttoning it, unrushed. It sat on the chair as well. The pile looked so neat - light green shirt, black slacks, black shoes, simple black belt, and black socks, all carefully folded and placed on the armchair. Kyle pulled on the cotton shirt. It was a sleeveless v-neck style and too baggy for Kyle’s slim frame. He wondered what he looked like, but there were no mirrors in the room. No slippers, either, though Kyle rationalized that the floors must be cleaned thoroughly and regularly.

Then again, considering the rest of the corruption, they might not be cleaned very well or very often.

But considering how many employees worked here every day as if things were normal, completely ignorant to the grand corruption of the asylum, they would clean as they would at any other mental hospital. That’s what Kyle rationalized, at least. Reality was an unknown, too far off, and not worth investigating too far anymore.

Kyle sat right on the edge of the examination table, let his feet hang, and waited for the doctor to open the door and decide which step into Hell Kyle would take next.

He waited.

Kyle had no watch - his had broken the week before and was still waiting to buy a replacement. He also didn’t have his phone - he’d left it on his desk.

He pondered the fate of his things at his desk: that everything could be thrown away or given to other employees, employees who wouldn't know Kyle. They who wouldn't recognize that succulent as the very succulent belonging to the ginger communications assistant who suddenly stopped working for Bechdel-Holtz. The one who went insane, who had to be committed for the safety of others. His desk suddenly empty, the game lounge he so often ate lunch in left permanently empty, the window left open so that only the ghost of Kyle Broflovski could stare out at the gates. Kyle Broflovski won't have windows anymore, just the small window on his cell door, with only other cells to gaze at. 

His wallet was in his pants pocket, but he figured it didn’t matter much anymore. If he tried to keep it on him, a doctor or nurse would likely take it from him. As for his clothes, sitting neatly on the armchair, Kyle supposed they would be disposed of. Even if his clothes and things were stored, he didn’t expect to get them back. 

In sending that email, Kyle has signed his own death warrant. Whatever lay ahead, he had already given in to it. Whatever they did to him, Kyle had, hopefully--God, hopefully--caused the first domino to fall. Reporters would come, police would come, and maybe Kyle would still be alive and sane when they came. He might be free.

He groaned. Kyle was getting bored. And depressed. The more he thought about his potential fate here, the more hollow he felt. And the goddamn buzzing of the all-too-bright light bulb wasn't helping his mood. The walls reflected the light too well, making everything just slightly too bright to look at. Kyle felt himself squinting. He was getting a headache. The longer he was left alone in the tiny room, the more Kyle imagined he might really go insane.

It felt like it’d been forever since his nurse left. So Kyle decided “fuck it” and started rifling through the drawers and cabinets. He found disposable gloves, popsicle sticks, cotton swabs, Petri dishes, tissues, and other things, but nothing immediately useful. Kyle wished his pants had pockets so that he could at least take some of these things for later. 

Kyle huffed and sat back on the examination table. After another unknowable amount of time, he lay down across the table. It was more like a bed, anyway. It was beginning to feel like forever had passed. Technically, the door was unlocked. Kyle could just open it up and see if anyone was around. But he figured they might just abuse him if he did that. God and Kyle both knew these people treated normal patients like that, why not their prisoner-patient as well?

The longer he lay on the table, the closer to sleep Kyle drifted. Eventually, Kyle felt himself slipping in and out of dreams. They were vague; a claustrophobic forest with distant figures running like the shadows of birds, too fast and indistinct to follow. The shadowy figures ran and laughed and screamed and howled. Kyle would blink and see the white walls of the room, but then be back in the forest. The room seemed to dim, it's white walls cast with the shadows of tree trunks. Beyond the walls and through the trees, the figures ran and yelled through the darkness. His eyes would slip shut and the forest would take over almost completely, but each time Kyle opened his eyes and returned to the room, it dimmed and grew more trees. When Kyle closed them again, the forest seemed to move from the dead of night and into twilight. Kyle could almost make out the figures who screamed amoung the trees, wearing white coats and blue scrubs, yelling and screaming and shrieking. The forest buzzed. The sound seemed so familiar. The buzzing blended with the howls and laughter of the figures until it became a cacophony of buzzing cackles, like cicadas in summer. Kyle lay on the forest floor and listened and watched, waiting for the figures to run in his direction. They never did. They couldn't reach him nor see him; his door was locked and he had no windows.

Kyle had no idea how long he spent in his half-sleep, but eventually, he opened his eyes all the way and focused on the walls of his blank room. He kept trying to blink away the dream, but somehow he could still hear the cackling laughter and the screams and the howls.

As Kyle woke up fully, he realized that the screams weren’t limited to his dreams. They echoed as if underwater, blocked from entering his room by the closed door. Kyle slid off the bed. He stood at the door, listening. While in this same room, Kyle had begun to make his peace with death, with insanity, with torture and experiments and small white rooms with cots and only himself to listen to. Kyle listened to the echoes, to the buzzing light bulb, and opened the unlocked door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter felt a bit weird to write, so I hope it turned out okay. Kudos are rad btw, and feedback is always welcome. :D Thanks so much for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cartman wakes up.

Somewhere in a dimly lit part of Cartman’s mind, he remembered everything he had researched about The Bechdel-Holtz Center. The conspiracy theories from Reddit and other forum websites buzzed in his mind like a cloud of gnats, each one indistinguishable from the others. Fucking hell, he shouldn’t have come here. He should have picked some other story, a different lead. But that email - someone from within the center, a guy named Kyle Broflovski who worked in communications, had released his personal testimony regarding his experience with The Bechdel-Holtz Center. He said a few brief words about inhumane testing, using the patients as unwilling subjects, committing patients who didn’t need to be kept in the asylum. Broflovski sent no proof, though. Most places ignored his email, but Cartman spent enough time digging through internet communities of conspiracy theorists to have heard similar stories about Bechdel-Holtz; parents and friends talking about loved ones being committed, never seen again. These stories were always taken down from the various forums they were posted on after only a few days of going up, then screenshots or copies of the original post would resurface on a different site, only to be taken down again soon after. Cartman didn’t recall individual stories as he lay on the floor, only vague memories of testing, lies, false reports, disappearances. But nothing like this; this place looked like it had been turned upside down and then put through a bloody blender.

Cartman had fallen. He was on the floor now. His body felt numb - all over. His back; it hurt. After he fell… should he be hurt worse? _Was_ he hurt worse? Oh, god, fuck - that guy had pushed him over the rail. How long had it been? Was that guy still up there?

Cartman opened his eyes to the high ceiling of the main lobby. Moonlight streamed through the skylights. Cartman could make out the moon itself peaking between clouds, the light glimmering sharper than normal due to his squinted eyes. Maybe trying to rate his pain would help. Cartman focused on the ache across his back. Okay, yeah, it was bad, but not horribly so. His head pounded worse than his back, he realized now that he was really thinking about it. Maybe his back was only at a… a four, on the pain scale. Yeah, a four. His head throbbed closer to a six, but not a sharp pain. Just a typical throbbing, aching pain. Cartman decided it was survivable. He had to get up, get out of this asylum, and then he could succumb to whatever pain he was suffering from.

He started to sit up.

His head swum through the grand entrance, pulling his eyes slowly through the heavy syrup that his sight became. The browns and blacks of the wood and walls and chairs blended like wet paints on a palette.

Cartman laid back down. Maybe he should rest, just for a little. Then he could get up and out and back to his car. Oh god. Climbing. He would need to jump the gate again. God, fuck, he might as well just pass out and fucking die. How was he going to climb in this kind of physical condition?

Jesus, he couldn’t think about that yet. Future problems for future Eric Cartman. Present Cartman had enough shit to work through, enough questions he couldn’t answer, at least, not on his own.

What happened to this place?

Something must have gone wrong. (Of-fucking-course.) Within the four days between that email from Kyle Broflovski to when Cartman arrived, somehow, somewhere along the lines, this place fell into chaos. A hellhole. And Cartman had just fallen further in.

He needed to climb out, and that started with standing up, or at least sitting up. Cartman pushed himself into a sitting position. His head drowned itself: his hearing sloshed underwater, muffled like when he'd been a kid playing listening games at the local pool; his eyes stopped focusing as his vision blurred under the molasses of his head - an injury. All Cartman had to do was wait. It would go away. It would get better. 

So he stayed that way, sitting up with unfocused eyes and head lolled forward, heavy on his sore neck and aching back until his vision finally cleared to an almost normal state and the weight of his head became bearable.

“Okay,” Cartman said, speaking out loud for the first time since falling. He throat scratched painfully when he spoke. Water - Cartman needed water. After fall like that - being out cold for an unknown amount of time - his body wanted something, some water or maybe even some food. He tried to think through solutions: he could find a kitchen, find some food and water, or at least a bathroom. It would have sinks, so Cartman could get something to drink from there.

No, no, he needed to fucking prioritize and priority number one was getting the fuck out of this place. _Stand,_ he thought. _There is only one way out of here and that is to get up and walk._ His head pounded as he did it, but Cartman stood. His weight felt so heavy on his feet, beyond tired, beyond exhausted, all the way to feeling as if gravity was pulling on him with more force than it pulled on any other being or object on Earth. Cartman felt his bones crumbling into weak and useless dust, his muscles sinking against the core of the planet, his eyes rolling back and betraying him. This feeling felt so far beyond exhaustion that Cartman wondered if English even had a word for it. One foot dragged after another and slowly, surely, Cartman forced himself to move. He would make it to the door, he would make it to the gate, and he would jump that gate and make it to his car and start the car and make it home and drive right back to his shitty apartment and never come back to The Bechdel-Holtz Center.

He collapsed a few feet from the door. He was awake, but not standing. “Really letting myself down today, huh?” Cartman muttered into the carpet. A soft, brown carpet. Not too low, not too high. Very average, but soft. Cartman kept his eyes open long enough to realize that there wasn’t even any blood around him; despite drops and splashes and pools of blood covering so much of the room, Cartman lay in a very clean area. How nice. Almost funny, really. He laughed a little into the soft, brown, average carpet. 

Maybe his head was bleeding - how was he to know? He couldn’t really move his hand to check. He was too weak. Weak, that’s what he was. He’d been weak since he was a child. God, couldn’t even bother to get in shape, _huh, Cartman?_ He groaned against his own train of thought. His normal consciousness was mixing with his self-deprecating side, confusing him and meshing his anxieties and hateful nature with his normal self. He’d even tried so hard to get better. He’d been positive, he’d gone easy on himself, he'd challenged himself to new opportunities, and he’d been thrown over a banister from the second story of a building down to the first floor. He’d probably landed on all his camera equipment.

Oh god. That was all of his shit. 

That shit was too expensive to just get smashed to nothingness because some lunatic wanted to murder him.

Cartman couldn’t even dwell on the hauntingly sobering thought of someone attempting to actually murder him - he sat up faster than any rational part of his mind would have ever allowed and ripped open the zipper to his camera bag. Inventory. Shit shit _shit._ He pulled everything out and laid it all in front of him: his large camera, safe in its case, was somehow fine, though the mic arm was broken. Fuck it, he would have to replace it. At least it was only an attachment; the actual camera would have been so much more to replace. His lenses were all fine, including the one in his second bag, the one for his smaller. His handheld camera itself had been in his hand when he fell. Now, it was gone. 

Cartman shot right up and scanned for where it lay. It must have rolled or bounced or fallen differently or been thrown out of Cartman’s grip when he fell, but it somehow ended up next to the reception desk.

The desk was a big circle, all covered in blood. It stank. Cartman normally would have cared; he would have been repulsed, covered his nose or backed away or moved in slower but not then - he wanted his camera. He needed to make sure it was okay. He darted over, scooped it up, and hurriedly checked every part. He checked every visual function he could think of before lovingly pulling it tight against his chest. Cartman closed his eyes and breathed in through his nose, long and with shaking effort, then let it out slowly through his mouth. When he opened his eyes,  he saw the sudden reminder of the guard whose hat sat just a little too low compared to his neck.

The body sat in a chair, slumped, the man's hat placed on his severed neck with care. On the ground next to the chair in clear view from where Cartman now stood (but, of course, not in clear view from above) was his head, eyes wide open, still shocked at seeing their attacker. Cartman thought about swallowing the lump in his throat, but he couldn’t; he was paralyzed. He couldn’t pull his eyes away from the body unless it was to stare at those unblinking eyes. Cartman’s breathing was so stiff, shuddering air through his nose slowly. Cartman stared and stared and stared at the dead man. His thoughts darted between ideas, notions of the people in the asylum. People would do this. How? With what? The cut was so clean - his head must have been cut from his neck so quickly, so easily. What kind of blade did the murderer use? How did the murderer even find something capable of that? Fucking fuck, Cartman’s stomach churned with acid but he couldn’t take his eyes away from the dead security guard. The weight of his injury resurfaced, reminding him that he didn’t have the stamina to keep standing and staring at the murdered man. But he still stood there. He still stared. And the guard still sat, slumped. Limp. No longer alive. Dead.

Cartman might’ve stood there until he died if not for the sound of soft footsteps behind him. He snapped around to look.

A young man stood across the reception hall. A young man in loose, dirtied patient garments. A patient. He held a knife - a knife dripping with blood. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really should have written more considering how long it's been, but here is chapter 3! I hope you all enjoyed. As always, I very much appreciate kudos and especially comments. I really love to hear from people and it helps motivate me to write more. Thanks so much for reading and I love you all. <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to Kyle, entering into the chaos of the asylum as the madness first begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh wow look at this, an update! School is so busy and I'm making excuses but here we are at chapter 4. Hope you guys enjoy, leave me some kudos or a review please and dear gosh I'll try to get you guys a fifth chapter soon.  
> Relatively soon.

The halls echoed with screams and laughter while Kyle walked. All the lights were still on, bathing the grey walls in a sickly yellow-orange. The light made the asylum halls open up into a tunnel of warm tones, inviting Kyle to continue toward whatever brilliant place might be lying in wait.

  
The hallway also split off into branching halls. As he passed one, Kyle could hear screams. They sounded louder now than from inside the examination room, crescendoing the further Kyle went. When Kyle would pass a new branching hall, the noise would spike-- _people were screaming down that one._ Pained, fearful screams. Kyle would shudder, then walk right past.

  
It felt like walking through a dream. He floated barefoot over the short, soft carpet. It wasn’t quite grey here, made to look orange by the light and shadow cascading from the old lightbulbs. Not very eco-friendly, Kyle supposed to himself, but what motivation did Bechdel-Holtz have to be eco-friendly?

  
Kyle knew the next hallway: he’d been guided down it on his way here hours earlier. Was it hours ago? He had no idea anymore. He turned and kept going. He kept going past examinations rooms, their doors left open, revealing silent and clean rooms inside. He left the clinic area, out to the waiting room. The glass double doors were smeared with blood--not much, but enough to unsettle Kyle. He blinked his way out of a daze. Screams cried out from the clinic halls behind him. Past the doors sprawled the rest of the asylum; the offices, the bedrooms, the cells, the operating rooms, the testing rooms, the mad and abused and the bodies likely hidden in storage rooms throughout the basement. Worst of all, in the bowels of this place hid the Walrider experiments and all its bodies, hollow cadavers left to rot.

  
A freezing air passed Kyle.

  
_Oh._

  
Walrider. That’s what happened, and God only knows what state Bechdel-Holtz could be in if Walrider really had been set loose.

  
The shrieking within the clinic grew louder, closer. Kyle took one last anxious look behind him. He couldn’t stay still--some of these patients really were insane or had been driven insane from experimentation. If he stayed in one place too long, he could be attacked. Someone might brutality choke him to death, they could pin him down and--fuck, Kyle wasn’t a very strong, just small and lanky and--

  
Someone could hurt him.

  
He couldn’t see any movement beyond the glass, just the slowly dripping smear of blood. Only a little, though. Kyle steeled himself, walked forward, and pulled open the doors.

  
Only a little blood.

 

* * *

 

Right outside the doors, the tile shone and sparkled cleanly. It reflected the yellow and orange lights like a desaturated sun. Only ten feet down from the door, leading back toward the administrative wing on the second floor, blood pooled around nearly a dozen bodies all strewn about the hallway. Dead men and women slumped against the walls and floor, some faced down, blood still wet around their unseen faces. Others faced up to the ceiling, eyes blank or even missing. Missing, Jesus Christ. Much farther down, one woman faced Kyle. Dead, clearly. She bore bruises across her neck from having been strangled. Did she die sitting up like that, facing down the hall toward some last gasp of freedom? Or did her murderer just dump her lifeless body there, and her deadened eyes only happened to catch Kyle’s?

  
Kyle shuffled backward from the bodies. He didn’t want to know who did that or how they managed to get up here. He didn’t want to see who else was hurt or dead. Kyle clumsily turned around, nearly tripping on his own feet. He ran.

  
He ran down the halls, past the clinic and examination rooms, past the clinicians’ offices. Those offices all had glass walls. He could see inside to patients and doctors and nurses all running and hiding, cowering in fear while five or six patients wielding makeshift weapons of table legs and shanks bludgeoned and stabbed the employees.

  
He didn’t want to watch them all die. He had to keep running.

  
Kyle ran to the end of the hall where a window looked out over the main recreational yard. Outside, patients all ran free. They tumbled into each other, fighting and killing--tearing at each other’s hair and limbs. One man knocked down another and tore at his clothes. He climbed on top of his victim and disrobed himself. He--

  
Kyle stumbled back from the window and slammed into the exit stairwell. His feet pounded each stair as he went down. Were patients just killing doctors mindlessly? Killing each other? Would another patient attack Kyle? His mind buzzed with hypotheticals as Kyle burst onto the first floor.

  
The hallway downstairs was chaos. Staff members ran about, shoving each other into walls as they ran opposite directions down the hall. At the far end, in the direction of the main lobby, crazed patients swung kitchen knives, cleaving into the flesh. One by one, office assistants and janitorial staff dropped dead, their jerking bodies littering the hall in a slowly accumulating mass of twitching, dying limbs and torsos. To Kyle’s right, he realized he was near the exit door leading to the recreational field. As he stared at the door, he heard a sharp bang! from the other side, as if someone or something had hit up against it. Clearly, no one wanted to open up the can of worms on the other side of that door.

  
People screamed as they all tried to cower in the center of the hall. There were rooms on this hall, doors that should have opened into office space--rows and rows of cubicles and dozens of employees. But those doors were closed, and futile fists banged and banged on those closed doors. Still, the doors did not open. The people inside must have closed the doors, locked them if they could, barricaded them if they had to. Kyle couldn’t know for certain, of course, but had he been inside that room, he might’ve done the same.

  
Abandon his peers to their violent deaths.

  
Without a room to escape into as an option, Kyle needed to choose: left or right? Left lead to certain death at the hands of maniacs wielding kitchen supplies. Perhaps, if he turned out the door to his right, he might just survive the recreational field, despite the horror and depravity he had already witnessed going on out there.

  
He’d have to take his chances. Kyle pushed through the squirming mass of office workers, shoving his way to the door. He didn’t have to try very hard; once they noticed his patient garments, they all screamed and recoiled. This gave Kyle a path straight to the door.

  
The window was already covered in blood from the outside--it was no wonder nobody wanted to go near the exit door. Kyle wanted to live, though, and he had no chance at survival in this hallway waiting with the rest of the staff to die. He pushed the door open.

 

The fire escape door.

  
“Jesus Christ!” Kyle yelled as the alarm shrieked and flashed. For as loud as it was, Kyle almost appreciated how it finally drowned out the screams coming from all around him. Kyle turned around to look back inside one time before he ran from that hallway, only to see the red and white flashing lights bathing the staff members as they were all finally cut down. One by one, their screams cut short, leaving only the sound of the alarm blaring throughout the building. Kyle forced himself to look away as their killers continued to chop at the bodies.

  
They had already died. What violence occurred now was simply desecration for the thrill of it.

  
Kyle kept running. The alarm threw off the crazed atmosphere of the recreation yard, giving him time sprint past all the shaken patients. But the field was too large, and where was he headed? Nowhere. He just had to get away. But away wasn’t a destination. Maybe the shed? There was a maintenance shed. He could try hiding inside there.

  
The white doors seemed to glow under the mid-afternoon light. Kyle didn’t open the doors, though; someone else did. A hand shot out from between the blindingly white doors, grabbed Kyle’s wrist, and pulled him inside.  
The shed had no windows, so Kyle couldn’t see anything. Only black and blotches of color dancing in his vision from staring at the bright shed doors. All he knew in the darkness was the bony hand wrapped around his wrist and the quiet breathing that surrounded him. Kyle didn’t dare speak. He waited. Neither Kyle nor the hand on his wrist moved.

  
In the near-silence, Kyle could hear muffled yelling from outside. The fire alarm still rang dully across the field and into the shed. Someone in the shed coughed--the sound wasn’t close to Kyle. How many people were in here? Someone in the darkness shuffled as if readjusting how they sat or stood. The yelling outside continued to float around them but never enter the shed. Kyle and whoever held his wrist both continued standing completely still, surrounded by an unknown number of people, waiting out the screams in the dark together. The cries lessened. Slowly, one person at a time, the people who had been yelling were silenced. Whether by death or distraction, Kyle couldn’t know. He just hoped they didn’t decide to explore the maintenance shed.

  
Awhile after the last of the screams had ended, the lights in the shed flickered on.

  
A man held Kyle’s wrist. His dark hair was buzzed short and his skin pale from being kept inside too often. He wore patient garments just like Kyle’s, except his had stains from dirt and blood. His eyes were wide with fear. Kyle slowly looked around the shed to see other patients, their clothes all similarly stained and their eyes also wide. These people are terrified, Kyle thought.

  
Not everyone that Bechdel-Holtz held was completely mad, or even if they lost their sanity years before, not all the patients were violent. In fact, after Kyle dug into the truth behind the asylum, he found out that not all the patients were being rightfully detained. Many were almost completely sane and under normal circumstances should have been allowed to live freely.

  
Kyle wondered if that was the case for the people surrounding him. Or were these people crazy? Oh god, they could be completely insane, too, Kyle realized. And he had no way of truly knowing either way.  
He looked into the eyes of the man in front of him. The man holding his wrist practically shook with fear. His eyes were big and round and wet, near-tears, like a puppy. He even looked to be about Kyle’s age. It didn’t matter if he was sound of mind or functional or whatever, Kyle could see that he was innocent and terrified. Kyle could trust that much, at least.

  
Kyle took a shaky breath and said, “So you guys are hiding out here, too?”

  
The man gulped and nodded. “Yeah,” he said.

  
“Can you, um...” Kyle glanced down at his wrist.

  
“Oh, yeah, sorry!” The man let go of Kyle’s wrist and awkwardly stepped back. “My uh. My name’s Stan, by the way.” He shuffled his feet a bit. “I’m not sure if that matters really, but it feels right to introduce myself.”  
Kyle smiled a little bit. It was nice to find some humanity in this mess. He reached his hand forward. Stan took it and they shook. “My name’s Kyle Broflovski, and until today I was a communications assistant here.”  
Stan chuckled. “That’s how it is, isn’t it?” He shook his head and looked off to the side. “They always get you in the end I suppose. I was a technician, but I’m a humanitarian, dude! I do volunteer work with my girlfriend on weekends--at least I used to--at shelters and shit. For kids and homeless people and like, baby animals. When they brought me down to work on their machines, I… I couldn’t take it.”

  
Kyle nodded. “I collected a whole bunch of shit on these guys and their experiments. The Bechdel Corporation is seriously terrible, so I emailed everything I could out to journalists.”

  
“And then they committed you?” Stan asked

.  
“Well,” Kyle sighed. “They were in the process, at least.”

  
Stan gave him a sympathetic look before changing the subject. “These people are innocent and nonviolent. I managed to get them all here to hide from the more aggressive patients who have been let loose, but we need to escape. Will you help me?”

  
Kyle looked around at all their pleading faces. They didn’t belong here. Maybe one of these old men thought he was a pirate captain or was obsessed with chipping away at furniture and walls. Maybe one of the young men here developed hallucinations and his family had him committed. These people were in need of help, most likely. But Bechdel-Holtz had made them victims; they were all probably slated to be used for the Walrider experiment.

  
Kyle turned to Stan and nodded. “Of course I’ll help you. Let’s get out of this hellhole.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be back to Cartman. See you guys next time! (or in a different fic lol)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cartman is,,, doing. He's just doing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this at work lol

Cartman stood frozen, eyes locked on the young man across the room. His ginger hair looked tangled, his clothes torn and covered in dirt and bloodstains. His knife looked grubby with dried, crusty looking… mystery-substance on the blade. Cartman didn’t want to consider what the brown gunk on the knife might be.

The young man didn’t move, but he did speak. “Who are you?” he called to Cartman. His tone sounded almost accusatory.

“Fuck that, I don’t have to tell some crazy person anything!” Cartman yelled back.

The man rolled his eyes and began walking toward Cartman. “I promise not to hurt you, at least, not without reason.” His eyes looked so dead, his expression flat. “Give me one reason to and I’ll cut your throat.” Cartman shuddered. This guy was insane.

Of course he was insane--some escaped patient holding a knife and covered in blood stains? Holy shit, Cartman was lucky the guy didn’t immediately rush him.

“Did you…” Cartman sucked in a breath. “Did you kill this guy?”

The ginger knit his brow, looking confusing. “What?”

“This guy!” Cartman repeated, hysteric, “Did you kill him?”

He poked his head around the desk to assess the body and decapitated head. “Hm. No. No, I did not. That probably happened when Walrider first got out.”

“Who?” Cartman shook his head.

The ginger looked like he was about to explain when a high pitched screech sounded from across the room.

“Oh shit,” said the ginger.

_Jesus Christ,_ thought Cartman, _it’s gonna be a crazy person fight._ And he sure as hell didn’t want to be around to see who won.

Cartman started to turn for the front door, but his head was still swimming from his fall. The ginger ran faster. Cartman only watched, as if in a dream, as the young man jostled the door handle. “No!” The ginger yelled. He continuing grunting and cursing as he pushed and pulled at the front door. “You have got to be fucking kidding me right now!”

Cartman turned his head away from the struggling ginger. Swaying, lurking in the shadows, near where the main stairs and elevator both were, stood a woman. She stepped slowly, as if her feet were too heavy. Each step was so forceful--she wasn’t stomping rather, gravity was pushing her into the carpet with force unlike the rest of the planet. She opened her mouth slowly, less like a person getting ready to speak and more like her jaw dropping as if acted on by an external force. Cartman swallowed. Watching her move forward was like waiting on a dam to break; the buildup was so, so slow but once it broke, the flood would be fast and destructive. And her flow was.

She screamed again. Her voice like a banshee’s wail echoed through the main lobby. Cartman’s eyes widen with panic. The ginger ran up next to him, hands over his own ears, and yelled over the woman’s shrieking, “We need to go! Now!” When Cartman didn’t move--too stunned to respond or do anything at all--the ginger grabbed him by the arm and tugged. “We need to run, you absolute fucking fatass.”

“Hey!” Cartman yelled, snapping out of his shock. He moved, though, and just in time. The woman ceased her shrieking and sprinted toward Cartman and the ginger man.

The ginger dragged Cartman with him to the side of the room where glass windows showed a dark office space, rows of desks in various states of upheaval. The man pulled Cartman through the doorway and slammed the glass door behind him.  
“Help me move this desk!” the man said to Cartman. Cartman pushed with all his weight while the ginger pulled, effectively blocking the door. The woman banged on the glass behind them, then stopped. She walked backward, carefully. Her hand found the top of a chair from behind the main desk, and she began toward the barricaded glass door again.

“She’s gonna break the glass,” Cartman said.

“We need to keep running.”

The ginger led the way, weaving between desks until he reached another door. It connected the office space to a supply room that also functioned as the staff’s kitchen. Through another door and the reached a hallway that seemed to be lined with private offices. Behind them, in the bigger, more general office space, they both flinched at the sound of shattering glass followed by that same screeching.

“God damn bitch why does she have to keep screaming like that?” Cartman said while covering his ears. The ginger huffed but didn’t comment.

This hallway connected to a larger hallway. Down the way to the right, Cartman could see the stairs of the main lobby. To the left was just more shit.

There were also bodies. At least a dozen, all of them days old. Many had their throats cut, their heads lopped off, their bodies hacked away at. The floor was coated in a sticky brown substance that had to be pools of dried blood. It looked brown and rotten under the pukish yellow-orange lights.

The ginger stared at them all before nodding solemnly. “Okay, this way,” he said, heading to the left, slowly walking through the bodies.

“What?” Cartman whisper-shouted, not wanting to alert the psychopath woman in the other room as to where they were. “The exit is to the right, you fucking idiot.”

The ginger huffed at him and straightened his spine. Cartman noted to himself that this guy could have a serious superiority complex along with whatever other weird issues he likely had. The ginger even rolled his eyes while he spoke. “The main doors are locked, but we can try to get out a second-floor window. There are some stairs at the end of this hall.”

“Uh, yeah, there are also stairs right fucking here!” Cartman waved to the main stairs. “And an elevator! No need to fucking trample over some bodies.”  
“It’s probably broken. I wouldn’t trust that. And anyway, we can’t help these guys now. So just follow me. I promise it’s safer to stick with me than to go it alone.”

Cartman turned to go right down the hall. “Yeah, well, I’ll take my chances. Have fucking fun dying, fucking ginger.”

“God maybe you actually deserve to die.” The ginger man sighed. “Well, maybe I’ll see you on the second floor.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Cartman waved him off as he turned his back to the other young man. The walls we splattered with blood. The carpet caked with the dried. Sticky, brown substance. It made Cartman sick to his stomach. Or maybe that was just his head injury making him queasy. Most likely it was both.

He groaned a little. All his joints ached. If Cartman could, he would just lay down someplace with very little blood splatters and take a good, long nap.

The woman shrieked behind him. Cartman whipped his head around to see her standing in the hall where the ginger and Cartman had been just a minute before. Further down the hall, behind the woman, the ginger himself was nowhere to be seen. The woman stared right at Cartman. She took one slow step forward, then a second. Her steps landed heavily, just like before. Cartman backed away slowly. The elevator wasn’t too far behind him now.

The woman broke into a run. Cartman turned and broke for the elevator, his bags clunking against his back as he ran. The woman sprinted toward him. Cartman felt the strap to his heavier camera tug first, then he felt the woman jump on his back. He gagged his bag pulled down and the strap suddenly moved to pull around his throat. The woman’s weight and force knocked Cartman down, and his breath knocked out of him.

Somewhere in a mysteriously calm part of Cartman’s mind, he realized this would be the second time that day some petite crazy person had taken him down.

He gasped for breath, but the strap around his neck made it hard to get air back. He felt like he was breathing underwater.

Above him, the woman loomed. Her eyes were big and round, wide with fascination. Her jaw dropped open, slowly, just like her steps. _Oh god,_ Cartman thought, _I really don’t wanna hear her scream again._ In fact, Cartman never wanted to hear another loud noise again, not for as long as he lived.  
And then, as if out of frame, a fire extinguisher. The base of the heavy object connected with the side of her head. She collapsed. Standing over Cartman now, the ginger. He didn’t loom with the same dark intention, but he did look fierce from Cartman’s point of view.

Cartman sat up, still a bit dazed. He loosened the strap around his neck, then blinked. “Didn’t you have, like, a knife?” Cartman realized.

The other man nodded. “I didn't want to kill her.”

“Why… not?” Cartman asked flatly.

“There’s no joy or satisfaction in killing. Only continued horror.”

“That’s cheerful,” Cartman said.

The ginger looked down the hallway, his eyes focused on something. Cartman looked as well, but for as far as he could see, the halls were empty save scattered bodies.

“We need to go. Now,” ordered the ginger.

Cartman got to his feet, though his head spun. “I’m going the way I want to go,” said Cartman.

“Ugh! You really are--you know what? Fine. Go get yourself killed. See if I care.” The ginger started walking off again, but he stopped short. “Who even are you?”

“Uh, someone not crazy? Unlike everyone here?”

The ginger rolled his eyes. “Yeah, sure.” He left, heading back down the hall where he came from. Good luck on your own, dude. You’re sure as hell going to need it.”

Cartman watched him walk away, loping off down the hall, carefully treading around the many dead staff members. The man must have been about Cartman’s age, a realization which sunk uncomfortably in Cartman’s already nauseated stomach. The idea of someone so close to him in age being in the middle of all this… this death, chaos, this massacre. Nothing about that concept sat well with him.

Cartman stumbled on shaking legs to the elevator. His lips were dry, chapped. He could taste some blood in his mouth, and he had to wonder when he bit the inside of his mouth--when he first fell, or just now when that woman attacked him?  
And the ginger saved him. Someone his own age, clearly fighting his way through this insane place. For how long now? Days? Those bodies looked days old.

Cartman licked his chapped lips. “That guy is crazy,” he whispered to himself, “just like everyone else still alive must be.”

He pulled the elevator’s metal cage door closed and hit the button for the second floor. There was first long, whing creak. Then, the elevator shuddered. The whole thing moved a few feet upward, very slowly. The first-floor lobby began to recede from Cartman’s sight.

The elevator slowed to a stop. A cold air moved through Cartman, from his head down to his toes, as if a frozen breeze had come through the top of the elevator and through the floor. The elevator shuddered again, rattling the cage. It moved down now, slowly. “Uhh,” said Cartman. The elevator began going down faster, zipping past the first-floor main lobby, rattling loudly as it went. “Shit!” he yelled. “Shit fucking shit!”

It kept going, down further, past other landings and further and further, impossibly deep into the ground. It slowed eventually, creaking to a stop at what had to be the deepest level of the building. Cartman pulled the metal cage open and stumbled out of the elevator before heaving on the ground. He threw up what little food was left in his stomach from dinner that evening and continued retching after that. He continued like that for some time before he collapsed on his side.

The floor was so cold here. Everything was cold. And white. It all glistened a clean, reflective white. Cartman tried to look around a bit, but all he could see was a short hallway the clearly broke off to the left and right to other hallways, but Cartman couldn’t see down them from where he lay on the floor. The cold floor. He felt so cold.

He needed to rest, if only for a little while. Let himself sleep and... When he woke up, then he’d be thinking clearer. He could figure out what to do. For now… Cartman would sleep. Only for a moment.

Just a small moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't tell if this is going well or not lol. Please review and leave kudos! I want to know you guys are still with me on this journey :P


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kyle and Stan rescue operation is a go! Time for the boys to bust out of this place... right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't expect Stan to be a character in this, actually. I wonder who else will pop up as we go along?

Stan and Kyle decided to wait in the shed until nightfall. Occasionally, one of the two would poke his head out of the shed just to check how late in the day it was. Kyle thought the Bechdel-Holtz Asylum looked almost beautiful, perhaps dreamlike, at sunset. He happened to poke his head out at that magical moment when the sky would cast the whole world in warm, blush-colored pink. The brick building might've looked like a fairytale setting, if not for the barbed wire fences, blood-soaked grass, and the beaten carcasses that the blood once spilled from. 

Kyle retreated into the shed. 

They sat in the shed all together: Kyle, Stan--whose last name was "Marsh," as Kyle learned--and the assorted male and female patients from Bechdel-Holtz's committed prison. Kyle spoke to a woman named Leslie--or at least, she claimed that was her name. "Leslie" also told Kyle how she was not actually human, but in fact, an advertisement. She pointed to her heart and said, "I don't have a human heart as you do, I have an energy core. I have no blood to pump, so I have no need of a pathetic human heart, Kyle." Leslie was covered in bruises and scrapes that had scabbed over by now, some sadly with dirt in the slowly healing cuts. "I'm sorry that you must deal with such pesky issues such as human vulnerability."

Kyle smiled weakly at the young woman. "I'm sorry, too." 

Stan and Kyle sat by each other as nighttime inched closer. They talked and talked, but time still passed so slowly. To make matters more frustrating, Kyle kept noticing Stan chewing his tongue, biting his lip, peeling away the skin around his fingers--Stan's frantic edge only served to make Kyle stir-crazy himself. 

As if Kyle wasn’t already terrified, but somehow a calm settled over him while in the shed. The closer it got to night, though, and the more he had to watch Stan pick his fingers until they bled, the less that mysterious calm seemed to stay. 

Stan told Kyle about his dog, a chocolate lab puppy he adopted with his girlfriend. Stan’s long-time girlfriend, Wendy, sounded like the type of person Kyle might get along with--Stan described her as pragmatic, political, empathetic. They both did different kinds of humanitarian work and volunteerism. From how Stan talked about his relationship, they must have been pretty cute.

“I wonder if she’s tried to get me out of here. If she knows,” Stan said. “I think about that a lot, if Wendy is out there, still thinking of me, trying to save me. I haven’t seen her in months, now.”

“They’re horrible to keep you here,” said Kyle.

“I was gonna propose,” Stan said quietly. His eyes glistened like a man about to cry but holding it back, because for him, now was not the time nor place to cry. Kyle imagined Wendy, raven dark hair like Stan, even paler skin, a small, goyish nose. She might’ve encouraged Stan to go ahead and cry, let out all those pent up feelings. He probably hadn’t allowed himself to cry since being trapped in Bechdel-Holtz. But Kyle had also hollowed out his attachments and emotions when he became committed to the asylum; he knew it would be hypocritical to expect Stan to feel when Kyle kept himself from feeling.

They sat like that, not crying, for a while longer. Eventually, Stan broke the silence. “Do you have someone outside of here?”

Kyle supposed that Stan wanted some kind of distraction, to keep himself out of his own head. So Kyle talked. “I live alone. I’ve got a small apartment; I’ve been trying to save so I can pay off my student loans.” 

Stan chuckled a bit at that. “Tell me about it--Wendy keeps wanting to go back to school for more and more shit.”

Kyle smiled, too. “I’ve got some plants, just so I can have something to take care of. I’ve never been very good at dating, so nobody like that waiting for me. But my mom and baby brother would miss me.”

“Oh yeah. You got in here recently, right?”

“Right in time for all hell to break loose, apparently.”

“No kidding.”

They both were silent for a moment, then, Kyle continued, “My dad is completely deranged. He became obsessed with online comments and shit, let it consume him. He lives at home still, but my mom has to take care of him a lot.”

“Yet you work here?” Stan asked with a grin.

“Ha, yeah.” Kyle shook his head. “I mean, pay is pay, right?” He huffed, “Well, at least I thought. This place wasn’t worth it, in the end.”

“In the end,” Stan repeated, softly. “Do you think this is the end?”

Kyle drew his mouth in a tight line. “I don’t know.” 

Stan stayed silent after that. Kyle felt a bit guilty for saying something so depressing and cryptic, so after a while he added, “When I sent out my email to journalists and papers and the board and doctors came for me, I resigned myself to all of this; I had to assume I would spend the rest of my life here, however long that may have been. But despite how insane this whole situation is, I have the chance to escape, to continue living, to maybe even do something more interesting with my life than just sit at home and work some desk job. I can volunteer, like you and Wendy, I can write or journal. I can try to do something interesting with my life, art or helping my community or teaching--kids and teenagers and maybe even adults. I want to do something now that I have the chance to.”

Stan smiled--small, but present. “There’s still hope,” he said. Stan turned to the shed doors. “I’m gonna see if it’s dark yet.” Stan stood, brushed off his legs, and made his way for the shed doors. He cracked them only a bit before turning back to Kyle, a determined look in his eyes and his knitted brows. “Now’s our chance.”

They rallied the patients. Less than a dozen crowded together in the shed, huddled between garden supplies and outdoor game props and balls. Stan and Kyle stressed to the men and women that they must all remain silent. Everyone seemed to understand, so Kyle looked to Stan, who nodded in affirmation. Time to go.

They slipped out of the shed, Stan in the lead and Kyle taking up the back. Stan suggested they try to jump the fence; over the chain-link fence and barbed wire, climbing down the other side to where the main entrance opened up into the driveway and the road that led down the mountain toward town could lead them all to safety. The group snuck quietly across the recreational field, careful to avoid corpses that could upset the patients. A quick scream could easily be the group’s undoing. 

A few minutes later and Stan was pulling himself up the chain-link fence. Stan told Kyle with absolute certainty--one person couldn’t get over barbed wire on their own, but if someone held it down, one had a chance. Stan would bite the bullet so that the others could all get over, then Kyle and Stan would help each other over. Kyle watched Stan’s mouth form silent swears as he adjusted his balance to keep himself safe on top of the fence and also holding down the barbed wire. Kyle wondered if Stan hurt himself trying to attempt it. Likely, yes, but Kyle tried not to picture his new found friend’s hand deeply gashed and bleeding.

“Okay,” whispered Kyle, coaxing up a middle-aged woman, “you need to climb now.”

It took some coercing, but Kyle managed to get the first couple patients climbing the fence and a few more looked eager to escape. Kyle hoped none of these people were secretly dangerous, murderous once on the outside or for too many hours off their medication. He shook the thought off. All the violent patients went on the attack when the Walrider attacked. Was that an attack? An escape? Kyle had no idea what the Walrider wanted, what its goal was, but it had definitely caused all this chaos. No--the Bechdel Corporation caused this. They were to blame. Kyle kept that in mind as he helped lift an old man up the fence. 

He climbed slowly, anxious about the height. He kept glancing down. Kyle sighed. From down here, he could hear Stan’s softly encouraging the man to keep going. It sounded like his voice was slightly strained--he most certainly hurt himself on the barbs. Not as if there was much choice left for them.

It felt like at least half an hour passed before most of the patients were over the fence. A middle-aged man twisted his ankle at one point trying to climb down, but otherwise, everyone was relatively alright. Kyle still shook with nervousness, though. Three more patients still had to get over the fence, and Kyle kept worrying that someone would appear out of the night with a knife. He reminded himself to breathe. While far from okay, this plan would work. Very soon, they’d be free from Bechdel-Holtz. Soon.

“Kyle.”

“Hm?” Kyle turned to the young woman, Leslie. 

“Are we trying to leave the asylum?” Leslie asked him, voice light. She sounded so sweet for someone so completely insane.

“Of course,” Kyle replied. “We’re all in danger here.”

“I cannot be hurt as you humans can. This place is perfectly safe for me.”

Kyle sighed and smiled softly at the girl, “I know, you’ve told me. But I think it will be best if we all leave together. Trust me.”

Leslie blinked. Her eyes looked so empty. The black night reflected in them, making her seem so devoid of life or soul. “I don’t want to leave.”

Kyle was taken aback by that. “Why not? Aren’t you tired of being trapped here?”

“I’m not trapped in here. The outside world traps me, they think I’m lying to them, but I have never lied.”

“I don’t think you’re lying, Leslie.” Kyle placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, getting ready to continue to convince Leslie that she needed to leave with the group. 

Instead, Leslie grabbed Kyle’s wrist. “Then you understand why we must stay here.”

Kyle watched the last of the patients other than himself and Leslie begin climbing the fence. Another young woman, so eager to get away from Kyle and Leslie. She even waved. “Goodbye,” the woman told Kyle. And Kyle understood. 

“Goodbye,” he told her. Kyle turned to look into Leslie’s eyes. Hollow. Their brown iris so dark, they appeared black. 

She tightened her grip on Kyle’s wrist. “Come with me.” 

“Where are we going?” Kyle asked her.

“Where I can save you,” Leslie stated, beginning to walk back across the field, dragging Kyle with her. 

He tried to resist, to pull away. He dug his heels into the dirt. “No!” he yelled. “No, I need to leave!”

“You cannot.”

“I have to get out of here!” Kyle screamed at her. She snapped back around and gut-punched Kyle. He doubled over, gasped for breath. She pulled; he stumbled behind. “No,” he moaned weakly. He tried to pry her hand off of his wrist; she slapped him. He tried to become a deadweight, dropping on the ground. She continued to trail him over rocked, cutting up his knees and fraying his pants. And so, they continued. Kyle kept repeating the same things to get free, Leslie kept hauling him behind her. 

He screamed, he hit at her hand and wrist and arm; Leslie did not break. Kyle was fighting an impossible battle. How could he win a fight against someone who believed that there was no fight? She believed she had already won, and clearly, she had. Kyle kept crying out, hoping for some part of his situation to change, for Leslie to finally wake up and realize she needed to leave with the others, for her to acknowledge the pain she must have been feeling and let go, for someone else to arrive and either save Kyle or at least end this nightmare faster. Something, anything. Kyle just couldn’t take being tugged behind Leslie any longer. 

She marched him across the recreational field. They reached a gate in the chain-link fence, and on the other side, the grass ran all the way up to the side of Bechdel-Holtz’s female ward. The heavy metal door sat open, and Leslie pushed right past the door into a dark hallway that Kyle was certain she knew all too well. She led them through darkened hallways, up stairs, over the bodies of dead women and nurses and researchers who Kyle was sure deserved their fate but hated feeling their dead skin under his bare feet nevertheless and--

Leslie laughed, lighthearted. “You’re so serious, Kyle. Smile a little more. You are much more handsome when you smile.”

Kyle wanted to be sick. 

She guided into a room, her room, if he had to guess. She didn’t live in a padded cell, as many prisoners did. Leslie got to have a twin-sized bed and blankets and a nightstand. That meant she likely was not a danger to herself or others. That was good for Kyle’s sake.

To an extent, at least. Kyle remained in the asylum. Maybe Stan would make it to freedom. Maybe Stan Marsh would be all over the news. Stan Marsh, reunited with his girlfriend and now fiance, as the news stories would read, both advocating for higher standards for mental healthcare. Stan would tell the authorities about the horrors of Bechdel-Holtz and the goddamn military would show up to help clear the scene.

Out of Leslie’s window, Kyle could see the fence leading to freedom. He had been so close, but as the door clicked closed behind him, Kyle knew it was not yet to be. He hadn’t yet paid his time at the Bechdel-Holtz Center; he would spend many more hours and days here before he earned his freedom. Leslie wrapped her arms around Kyle’s waist, nestled her head into the crook of his shoulder, and mumbled, “Come to bed.” 

Kyle briefly wondered if she meant sleep or sex, but he didn’t really have the mind to dwell on it anymore. He had spent time hoping, but now he was back to a closed room in Bechdel-Holtz. Back to hopelessness, back to hollowing out his emotions. If Leslie wanted sex, he would give her sex. If she just wanted him to lay there, he would lay there. Maybe, if he laid still enough, he would turn to stone. Then he would never have to feel again, and Bechdel-Holtz would fall behind him. Or perhaps, he would lay so still his heart would stop. Bechdel-Holtz, behind him. 

Kyle hoped he would fall asleep and never wake up. 

“Please, Leslie,” Kyle began, “kill me in my sleep.”

She guided him into bed, “Oh no, Kyle. I am going to protect you.”

Kyle closed his eyes to whatever came next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I also didn't expect Leslie to be a character lol. Hey--should I write a highly-uncomfy sex scene between Leslie and Kyle? (Fun fact! I will choose and you all have no choice, only the illusion of it! ... except actually whatever you guys say will strongly affect my decision. Ily all <3 <3)
> 
> Oh wait that's right. Cartman is up next! Let's catch up with him before we scroll back a couple days to Kyle again. How do you guys like the fic so far? Any thoughts? Reactions? I'm so curious to hear what you guys think! Leave comments and/or kudos and I'll see you all again in the next chapter--the lowest floor of the asylum with local fool, Eric T. Cartman.


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